Roles to Implement LO LO9828

mdarling@warren.med.harvard.edu
Sun, 8 Sep 1996 11:46:28 -0400

Replying to LO9732 --

In response to the question of what are the roles and responsibilities of
non-programmers in designing groupware, Frank Billot comments:

>IMHO, when groupware allows users' data to be handled close to their
>original form, it already impacts on the level of self-organisation. That
>is because the work processes then don't have to be necessarily designed
>by "experts" which "know" better than the users how it is and will be in
>the future.

>It opens space for a knowledge base, which in place of a reductionnist
>database, empowers users to organise, share, diffuse relevant data;
>relevant data, for them, not simply for "experts".

This is potentially so true. I am absolutely no expert on the design of
groupware. But it seems to me the real test of who owns the technology
might rest in whether the users are part of the design team or the
designers are part of the user team (at least temporarily).

Can anyone share their experiences of how their groupware got designed?
Whose questions ultimately guided development? What assumptions were
embedded in the design?

Marilyn Darling
Signet Consulting Group/GKA
mdarling@warren.med.harvard.edu

-- 

mdarling@warren.med.harvard.edu

Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>